Latin America

On Sunday 17th April, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the Brazilian President, was approved on Sunday by a united front of bourgeois parties in order to establish a new government to act in the interest of the capitalists. But the impeachment has unleashed the forces of class struggle in Brazil, and the new government will be unable to stabilise the situation.

Drunk with victory and seething with revenge, the reactionary opposition in Venezuela have started to announce plans to reverse the gains of the Bolivarian revolution. This has provoked ferment amongst the revolutionary rank and file, which at the same time is directing part of their anger at bureaucrats and reformists within its own ranks.

Late into the night in Venezuela on 6th December, the counter-revolutionary opposition MUD had won 99 seats to the Bolivarian PSUV’s 46, with another 22 remaining to be allocated. This is a serious setback; it is our duty to analyse the reasons and explain the likely consequences.

Venezuelans will go to the polls on Sunday 6th December to elect deputies to the National Assembly. A combination of factors have made this one of the most difficult challenges the Bolivarian Revolution has faced in the 17 years since President Chávez was first elected in 1998. Either the revolution is completed, or it will be defeated.

Once again, the mainstream media in Britain have distorted the truth in order to support the actions of the Western Imperialists. We publish here a reply - by Jorge Martin and Rachel Boothroyd of the Hands off Venezuela campaign - to an artice in the Guardian, which falsely accuses "democracy" of being "behind bars", with "opposition leaders facing jail or death".